NBER Working Papers and Publications

We develop a continuous-time model of liquidity provision, in which hedgers can trade multiple risky assets with arbitrageurs. Arbitrageurs have CRRA utility, while hedgers’ asset demand is independent of wealth. An increase in hedgers’ risk aversion can make arbitrageurs endogenously more risk-averse. Because arbitrageurs generate endogenous risk, an increase in their wealth or a reduction in their CRRA coefficient can raise risk premia despite Sharpe ratios declining. Arbitrageur wealth is a priced risk factor because assets held by arbitrageurs offer high expected returns but suffer the most when wealth drops. Aggregate illiquidity, which declines in wealth, captures that factor.

We develop a dynamic model of trading and investment with limited aggregate resources to study investment cycles. Unverifiable idiosyncratic investment opportunities imply market prices to play a role of rent distribution, distorting private investment incentives from a social point of view. This distortion is price-dependent, leading to two-sided inefficient investment cycles--too much investment in booms with high prices and too little in recessions with low prices. Interventions targeting only the underinvestment in recessions might make all agents worse off. We connect our results to both industry specific and aggregate boom-and-bust patterns.

We propose a model where investors hire fund managers to invest either in risky bonds or in riskless assets. Some managers have superior information on the default probability. Looking at the past performance, investors update beliefs on their managers and make firing decisions. This leads to career concerns which affect investment decisions, generating a positive or negative "reputational premium". For example, when the default probability is high, uninformed managers prefer to invest in riskless assets to reduce the probability of being fired. As the economic and financial conditions change, the reputational premium amplifies the reaction of prices and capital flows.